THE help of pop star Olly Murs made sure that Witham Cricket Club's players had victory covered in their latest Marshall Hatchick Two Counties Championship outing.

And the Witham players were extremely thankful that their friend had been able to help them out with an important piece of kit.

Murs, who is good friends with several of the Witham players, had paid for new rain covers to be installed at their home ground and they played a big part in helping the team secure a division one win against Halstead last weekend.

Wet weather could well have prevented a finish to the game, but the covers enabled the pitch to stay dry enough for a result to be reached and with Witham winning off the final ball, skipper Jake Wakelin expressed his gratitude to his friend.

Wakeling said: "We were lucky to have the covers on Saturday as we had a lot of rain on the day and still managed to get the game finished.

"Olly wanted to do something to help us as he's a Witham lad, he comes down to the club and he's good friends with myself, Kaan Hawes and some of the other guys.

"So he is involved with us and he wants to do what he can to help out.

"He has sponsored us and he bought the covers as he knew we needed them; they are a massive help as they are first-class covers and made a real difference last weekend.

"Olly is a sportsman himself and he knows the difference these kind of things can make so he wanted to play his part.

"He knows how hard we work to achieve things as a club and he wanted to give something back to the community where he comes from.

"It really helped us win against Halstead as it had rained pretty consistently and having proper covers like that was great."